Breaking News

COVID-19: The Latest

Coronavirus pandemic reshapes air travel as carriers struggle

In a bid to survive, airlines are desperately trying to convince a wary public that measures like mandatory face masks and hospital-grade air filters make sitting in a plane safer than many other indoor settings during the coronavirus pandemic. It isn’t working. Surveys indicate that instead of growing comfortable with air travel, more people are becoming skeptical about it. In the United States, airline bookings have stalled in the past month after slowly rising — a reaction to a new surge of reported virus infections. Globally, air travel is down more than 85% from a year ...

LaRose: No mask mandate at polls in Ohio

COLUMBUS — Health and safety guidelines that Ohio’s elections chief sent to county boards Wednesday recommend, but do not mandate, mask-wearing and other preventive measures for those voting in person this fall — a nod to voter freedoms in a closely divided battleground state. In a Statehouse news conference designed to reassure voters about the safety and security of casting their vote, Secretary of State Frank LaRose said nothing — including the coronavirus and skepticism about mail-in voting that’s been stoked by President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican — will stop ...

Homeschooling interest grows during pandemic

MISSION, Kan. — As parents nationwide prepare to help their children with more distance learning, a small but quickly growing number are deciding to take matters entirely into their own hands and begin homeschooling. Some are worried their districts are unable to offer a strong virtual learning program. For others who may have been considering homeschooling, concerns for their family’s health amid the coronavirus and the on-again, off-again planning for in-person instruction are leading them to part ways with school systems. Mindy Kroesche, a freelance writer and editor from ...

Vaccine push as much about rivalries as science

WASHINGTON (AP) — No, Russia isn’t having a Sputnik moment. The announcement Tuesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country was the first to approve a coronavirus vaccine did not provoke the awe and wonder of the Soviet Union’s launch of the first satellite into orbit in 1957. Instead, it was met by doubts about the science and safety. But the claim underscored how, like the space race, the competition to have the first vaccine is about international rivalries as well as science. The first nation to develop a way to defeat the novel coronavirus will achieve a kind ...

What’s keeping Congress from a virus deal?

WASHINGTON — Hopes that talks on a huge COVID-19 relief deal would generate an agreement soon are fizzling, with both the Trump administration negotiating team and top congressional Democrats adopting hard lines and testy attitudes. Now that President Donald Trump has issued a series of executive edicts and the national political conventions are set to begin, consuming the attention of both Trump and top Democrats, the talks seem to be on an indefinite pause. The urgency has evaporated now that rank-and-file lawmakers have been set free for the August recess, and while both sides ...

Hancock County Schools opts for hybrid format

NEW CUMBERLAND — When Hancock County students return to school on Sept. 8, they will be spending part of their time in the classroom and part of it learning from home. The Hancock County Board of Education Monday approved a recommendation from Superintendent Dawn Petrovich to begin the school year with a “blended” learning scenario. Under the plan, students’ attendance for in-person instruction would be done alphabetically, with those whose last names begin with the letters A through K attending Monday and Tuesday, and letters L through Z in class Thursday and Friday. “We ...